At the end of the first quarter of 2025, the MMA Panel returns.
One week into the trade war-flavoured federal election, less than a week until City of Vancouver’s council by-election and almost a month after the B.C. NDP budget landed with a thud. Host Bob Mackin welcomes back Mario Canseco of Research Co and Andy Yan of the Simon Fraser University City Program.
Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.
theBreaker.news has obtained Washington State Patrol (WSP) dashcam and body-worn camera footage showing the climax of an armed carjacking that began in Richmond, B.C. on Dec. 12, 2024.
The accused, Shawn Douglas Bergstrom, was almost one-third of the way through a nine-month Provincial Court probation order for a January 2024 assault in Nanaimo. The 42-year-old of no fixed address is scheduled to appear March 27 at Whatcom County Superior Court in Bellingham.
The video and related photographs and police reports about the incident were released to theBreaker.news after an application under Washington State’s freedom of information law.
The incident originated at 4411 No. 3 Road in Richmond where a man produced what was described as a large knife and demanded the driver hand over the keys to his black 2007 Toyota Tacoma. The suspect permitted the pickup truck’s owner to remove some personal effects before it was driven away. The victim reported the theft to Richmond RCMP at 12:37 p.m.
Around 1:22 p.m., the pickup truck was involved in a hit and run at the Peace Arch border crossing, where a 2021 Ford Bronco SUV was knocked out of the lineup at U.S. Customs.
WSP, Whatcom County Police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers pursued the Toyota Tacoma south on Interstate 5, from milepost 255 to 238. Speeds ranged from 64 to 160 kilometres-per-hour through light traffic.
A WSP trooper unsuccessfully threw a spike belt into the path of the stolen pickup truck near the Bow Hill Rest Area. Another trooper performed what is known as a precision immobilization technique, or a PIT maneuver, to force the driver to lose control.
The vehicle rotated and became stuck at the side of the road, ending the 109 km journey.
Bergstrom emerged from the pickup truck and, after a 12-minute standoff, was arrested. Officers found a machete nearby. It was eventually handed over to Richmond RCMP.
Bergstrom, 42, underwent a sobriety test and was found to be not impaired. An officer’s report, however, said “the driver might have been suffering from a mental health illness based on his odd statements and erratic behaviour.”
Bergstrom was charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, eluding police, reckless driving, hit and run and second degree assault. After he was booked, Bergstrom was transferred to Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Wash. under the Washington Department of Social and Health Services competency restoration program to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.
Richmond city councillor Chak Au was chosen on March 25 to be the Conservative Party candidate in Richmond Centre-Marpole. His opponent for the nomination, Zach Segal, will run in Richmond East-Steveston.
The decisions settle the war of words between Kenny Chiu, the Richmond East-Steveston MP from 2019 to 2021, and his challenger, former Vancouver South MP Wai Young.
The Jan. 28 Hogue Commission final report said Chiu’s unsuccessful bid for re-election in 2021 had been targeted by foreign interference. But Young went on a tirade in a Jan. 30 news release, downplaying the Hogue Commission’s findings, and accusing Chiu of dividing the community and helping increase Asian hate and racism.
Chiu responded, calling Young “reckless, dishonest and unfit for public office.”
theBreaker.news asked Poilievre on Feb. 5 in Vancouver about Young’s statements.
“Conservatives have been victims of foreign interference,” Poilievre said. “It’s clear that Beijing wanted to keep Justin Trudeau in power, I have no doubt they’ll want Mark Carney to stay in power. Mark Carney has a background of shipping investments to China.”
At 5:09 a.m. on March 25, Young sent her supporters an email, suggesting she was the candidate.
“As you know, we have a plan, a campaign office selected and a structure in place to deliver this riding into the WIN column,” Young’s message said. “I very much understand your eagerness to get out there now and take this fight to the radical Carney and his disastrous party.
“Therefore, we are ready and look forward to winning this riding based upon our positive campaign message, which has united voters and resulted in riding membership sales outpacing our opponents!”
Around 13 hours later, the decision was made in favour of Segal, a lobbyist for the Building Owners and Managers Association of B.C. and former aide in the Stephen Harper Conservative government.
Segal will seek to unseat Liberal backbencher Parm Bains, who has cultivated close ties with groups in the Chinese community that are aligned with the Chinese consulate.
Chiu, who declined an interview, said in a message to supporters that he would volunteer to help Au and Segal win on April 28.
Chiu said he continues to be a “staunch supporter of Pierre Poilievre and his vision for a strong, national, majority Conservative government. His leadership represents the hope and determination we need to restore prosperity, security and unity in Canada. While I may not be the candidate for the riding of Richmond East-Steveston, my commitment to our shared values and goals remains the same.”
Au will challenge Liberal backbencher Wilson Miao in Richmond Centre-Marpole. Au was first elected to city council in 2011 and ran unsuccessfully for the B.C. NDP in the 2017 provincial election in Richmond-South Centre.
Au and Segal had been running for the nomination against David Wang, son of Lily Pang, an advisor to the pro-Beijing All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.
Wang did not respond to interview requests about his mother’s involvement in his bid for the nomination.
The legacy of Gregor Robertson’s decade as Mayor of Vancouver extended beyond the Lower Mainland.
A promise to end homelessness backfired. Drug overdoses skyrocketed. Gangs flourished. Locals were priced out of their homes. Vancouver became a world money laundering capital. All while Robertson used Vancouver city hall and taxpayers’ money to campaign against pipelines and tankers.
Frank Caputo, the Conservative incumbent in Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, joins Bob Mackin to talk about Mark Carney’s star candidate, who was parachuted into Vancouver Fraserview-South Burnaby for the April 28 election.
Prior to winning a seat in 2021, Caputo was a Crown prosecutor.
Two weeks after becoming Liberal Party leader, Prime Minister Mark Carney called a snap election for April 28. The 45th federal election had been scheduled, by law, for Oct. 20.
The dissolution of the prorogued parliament came 54 days after the final report of the Hogue Commission public inquiry, which was triggered by China’s interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
When it was announced in September 2023, the commission had a deadline of December 2024 (extended to January 2025) with a view toward new measures to protect the 2025 election. Over the course of the public inquiry, concerns emerged about challenges to Canadian sovereignty from Russia, India, Iran and now the United States.
The 2025 election will go ahead seven months early and without the safeguards recommended in Commissioner Marie-Josee Hogue’s Jan. 28 report. An advocate for government integrity told theBreaker.news podcast that former Brookfield Asset Management chair Carney should have reopened Parliament to turn some of Hogue’s recommendations into law.
“This election is, I think, going to be undermined by foreign interference more than any other election has been,” said Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher.
There is related unfinished business. Namely, the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act, which mandated the creation of the Foreign Influence Transparency Registry. It received Royal assent in June 2024.
The new law required “entities that enter into an arrangement with a foreign principal to register their arrangements and disclose foreign influence activities in relation to government or political processes in Canada.”
But Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government did not hire a Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner. So neither the office nor the registry exists.
From the Hogue Commission final report: key, election-related recommendations waiting for legislative and policy action.
Foreign Interference Strategy
Recommendation 8:
The government should make it a priority to develop a whole-of- government Foreign Interference Strategy and provide a public timeline for its completion. This strategy should be integrated into a renewed National Security Strategy.
Communications strategy
Recommendation 9:
Develop a government-wide communications strategy to publicize the measures taken and mechanisms in place to protect our democratic institutions and processes from foreign interference.
Building trust with the public and stakeholders
Recommendation 17:
There should be a single, highly visible and easily accessible point of contact or hotline for reporting foreign interference to the government, which is responsible for engaging the appropriate agency or department. Follow-up with those who seek support should be systematic and ensure that those who make reports fully understand what can and cannot be done in response.
The government should prepare a guide about best practices against foreign interference specifically designed for political parties and their processes. This guide could, for example, cover subjects including foreign interference risks involving the use of personal devices, interacting with foreign officials and travel abroad. Political parties in turn should provide this guide, or specific training materials included in it, to their staffs and to all nomination candidates and candidates for office.
The RCMP
Recommendation 36:
All Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers working in affected communities should receive training about foreign interference, including transnational repression.
Recommendation 37:
The government should ensure that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is adequately resourced to investigate and disrupt foreign interference activities.
Third party political financing
Recommendation 42:
The Canada Elections Act should provide that third parties, other than individuals, who wish to rely on their own funds to finance regulated electoral activities, provide Elections Canada with audited financial statements showing that no more than 10 percent of their revenue in the previous fiscal year came from contributions. All other third parties that are not individuals should be required to incur expenses to support or oppose parties and candidates only from funds received from Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
Foreign entities should be prohibited from contributing to a third party for the purpose of conducting regulated activities.
The Canada Elections Act should clarify that a third party is prohibited from using property or services provided by a foreign entity for regulated activities.
Editor’s note: Before Liberal Parm Bains upset Conservative incumbent Kenny Chiu in the 2021 election, Bains met in Steveston with United Front activists wearing Chinese Canadians Goto Vote Association (CCGVA) shirts and carrying Bains election signs.
The Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections investigation did not result in charges, due to the weakness of existing laws. The report said CCGVA may have been acting as an unregistered third party: “We believe the interaction with Parm Bains was coordinated and not coincidental.”
Penalties
Recommendation 43:
The government should increase maximum administrative monetary penalties as well as fines for violations of Canada Elections Act prohibitions applicable to foreign interference.
Canada is on the cusp of a pivotal federal election. But voters will go to the polls with little information about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership campaign donors and his potential conflicts of interest. The Liberal leader says he is following the rules and has shifted his assets into a blind trust.
Democracy Watch’s Duff Conacher
A top advocate for government integrity, transparency and accountability says that is not good enough.
This week’s guest is Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch. He told host Bob Mackin on March 19 that Canadians have the right to know, now. But the system is riddled with secrecy, loopholes and lax enforcement. It allows politicians to profit from their decisions.
Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines and the Virtual Nanaimo Bar.
In the media business, it is called “take out the trash Friday.” When government reserves time on a Friday afternoon to make a bad news announcement.
That is what happened in the middle of Spring Break, one year ago today at the Metro Vancouver offices in the Metrotower skyscraper complex in Burnaby.
theBreaker.news was there on March 22, 2024, when Commissioner Jerry Dobrovolny announced that the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Project would cost $3.86 billion and not be finished until 2030. More than five times the original budget and 10 years later than promised. Dobrovolny blamed construction materials and labour inflation and the 2022 firing of original builder Acciona. The two sides are suing each other.
A year later, citizens in the region still don’t know who exactly is to blame and whether it was incompetence or corruption at play. But they will pay for it on their utility bills. Last month, Metro Vancouver hired a quartet of experts, led by former B.C. Deputy Finance Minister Peter Milburn, to audit the program. It is not the public inquiry or investigation that New Westminster Coun. Daniel Fontaine, Richmond Coun. Kash Heed or the North Shore Neighbourhoods Alliance demanded.
Click and watch highlights of one of the most-expensive news conferences in British Columbia history.
Despite a new policy discouraging business with U.S. suppliers, Toronto city hall could buy $10.7 million of FIFA World Cup 26 tickets, suites and lounges from a New York company run by Donald Trump’s former manager and part-owned by Trump’s Secretary of Education.
Toronto’s FIFA World Cup 2026 Subcommittee recommended on March 18 that city council buy the hospitality packages. City council is expected to decide March 26.
A staff report said MLSE, the owner of Toronto FC and operator of BMO Field, is the contracted commercial sales agent for the program. But the name of FIFA’s official hospitality provider, On Location Events LLC, was not mentioned in the report or at the subcommittee meeting.
TKO’s Ari Emanuel (second from right) with UFC’s Dana White and WWE’s Vince McMahon outside the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 12, 2023 (NYSE/IG)
Toronto city hall confirmed to theBreaker.news that “it is securing the assets” from On Location.
“The vendor was not named in the report because it was not material to the recommendations before committee,” senior communications advisor Elise von Scheel said by email.
Vancouver city hall, which does not conduct World Cup business in open meetings, is “still evaluating that opportunity” to buy packages from On Location, said Natasha Qereshniku of Vancouver’s World Cup secretariat.
In February, TKO Group Holdings Inc. completed the acquisition of On Location, bringing it under the same corporate umbrella as UFC and WWE, two companies that count Trump as a fan. In December, Trump’s Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, reported owning more than $50 million in TKO shares and receiving between $1 million and $5 million in dividends.
TKO CEO Ari Emanuel represented Trump when he hosted The Apprentice on NBC.
At the Endeavor Group in 2015, Emanuel bought the Miss Universe Organization from Trump. In 2021 and 2022, Elon Musk was a member of Endeavor’s board of directors.
A pamphlet attached to FIFA host city contracts details the “rights and assets” available to host committees, including the opportunity to buy up to 1.5% of the available tickets for each match at the host city’s stadium.
“These tickets can be used to assist fundraising efforts and included as part of a host city supporter package,” said the FIFA pamphlet.
FIFA also provides host committees with 175 to 250 complimentary VIP tickets at each match the city hosts. Host cities are also eligible for a small amount of tickets at matches they don’t host — including four to the final. Those tickets are not available for public purchase and cannot be resold.
Seven matches are scheduled for Vancouver and six in Toronto during the June and July 2026 tournament. Eleven U.S. cities and three in Mexico are also hosts.
On March 7, Trump welcomed FIFA president Gianni Infantino to the Oval Office and announced a Department of Homeland Security-led task force.
On the eve of its opening, the Vancouver Auto Show made international news by ejecting Tesla for fear that its display would be targeted by anti-Elon Musk/anti-Donald Trump protesters.
The New Car Dealers Association continued to make headlines on opening day, March 19, when auto industry lobbyists told reporters that the B.C. NDP government needs to delay its electric vehicle mandate. They did so at an event whose marquee sponsors include BC Hydro and the Ministry of Environment’s CleanBC program.
The NDP amended the 2019 Zero-Emissions Vehicles (ZEV) Act in 2023 to require ZEVs to make up 26% of sales of cars, light trucks and minivans by 2026, 90% by 2030 and 100% by 2035.
“There are clear headwinds to ongoing zero emission vehicle adoption, which include the restriction or elimination of purchase incentives, which we’ve seen here in B.C. and federally,” said Lucas Malinowski, director of federal affairs for the Global Automakers of Canada. “We have economic uncertainty with trade tariffs and not enough infrastructure is being built out to give consumers confidence that they can take and reliably charge their EVs anywhere.”
Brian Kingston, CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, said if U.S. tariffs do not go ahead, B.C. could, at best, reach 57% EV sales by 2030.
“This is well short of the mandated target of 90%,” Kingston said. “If EV sales do not increase at the rates that the government has mandated, the only way for automakers to comply is through restrictions of the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles in this province, or paying penalties of up to $20,000 per vehicle sold. The result of this, for British Columbians, is higher vehicle prices and limited vehicle choice.”
Kingston said new vehicle sales would flatline and cause job losses.
The Vancouver Auto Show runs through March 23 at Vancouver Convention Centre West.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim invested in and helped promote a real estate crowdfunding company that ran afoul of regulators.
B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) announced March 17 that Addy Technology Inc. had paid a $100,000 fine for trading without being registered. The company, which bills itself as Canada’s largest real estate investing platform, offered fractional shares in properties and developments for as low as $1.
“Between 2018 and 2025, Addy traded in approximately $26 million of securities of various issuers, with the average amount invested being $700 per investor,” said the BCSC announcement. “Addy charged investor membership fees for early access to certain properties and additional features on its platform, and charged software licensing fees to issuers and exempt market dealers (EMDs) for their use of its platform.”
BCSC said Addy unsuccessfully claimed it was exempt because of crowdfunding and that it used registered dealers to facilitate trades. BCSC said the company co-operated with the investigation and has applied for registration as a dealer.
Sim listed Addy in his statement of disclosure for 2024 and 2025. However, it does not show how many Addy shares Sim holds or the value of those shares.
On Sept. 19, 2023, Sim was the featured guest speaker at Addy’s “fireside chat” event in the Vancouver Lawn and Tennis Club with the company’s co-founder Stephen Jagger.
“We’re lucky to have a whole bunch of our issuers and dealers in the room, and the event was quite the success,” Jagger said on a recap video.
“Full disclosure, I think I’m an investor in Addy as well, right?” Sim said after Jagger introduced him. “So, yeah, so I want to get it out there. I, actually, this isn’t a plug for you, but I am an investor, and I actually think it’s incredible what you’re doing.”
Nobody from the Office of the Mayor has responded for comment. Addy’s head of operations, Kolina Kretzschmar, said the $100,000 settlement and application for registration as an EMD “reflects our ongoing commitment to working within the regulatory framework while continuing to innovate.”
